Don't You Forget About Me
by Sar-kaz-m
Summary: Hatter follows Alice through the Looking Glass -- but something goes wrong.
1. Chapter 1

_Will you recognize me?_

_Call my name, or walk on by?_

_Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling_

_Down, down, down, down_

–_Simple Minds_

* * *

The morning shift found him. He was a pile of loose litter, a mess of purple trousers and brown leather jacket, and a battered hat.

The shift foreman called the cops and an ambulance. The unconscious man was loaded up and taken away.

"Second one in two days," commented one uniform. "You need to get some better locks on this place."

"There was another mugging?"

"Some young woman."

* * *

He opened his eyes, blinked, and winced. The light stabbed at his eyes, sending pain shooting through his head.

"Easy there," a female voice said, and the light dimmed as she pulled the shades. "That better?"

He made a concurring noise. Peering up, he saw a blonde woman cross to the bed, and offer him a glass. He was confused by the strange stick poking out of the cup.

"Go ahead, use the straw. I'm sure your mouth is pretty dry," she encouraged. She wore strange pink clothing, shapeless and unattractive, which made her skin look ruddy, and her pale cropped hair even paler.

He craned up with his head, ignoring the glass to look around the room.

"Would you rather sit up first? Might bother your head," but he nodded, struggling to sit. She set aside the glass and did something, and to his amazement, the bed moved beneath him, lifting him up until he was mostly sitting, legs stretched out in front of him.

"That better?" He nodded, and this time took the glass when it was offered. He ignored the stick and sipped from the glass. The cool water soothed his throat, and he decided to try to speak.

"Where?" he asked hoarsely.

"County Hospital. You were found unconscious this morning, the building crew called Nine One One. The police will be by later to ask you about your attackers."

"Attackers?"

"Well, you were mugged, weren't you? Funny they didn't take your wallet."

He frowned, confused. "I don't know."

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"Huh. Well, don't worry Mr. Hatter, that's not unusual."

"Who?"

Now her expression turned suspiciously concerned. "Mr. Hatter? David Hatter?"

"Who's that?"

"I'm calling the doctor," she announced briskly. She left and moments later, returned with a tall thin man in a long white coat. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin.

When he spoke, his voice was heavily accented. "Well, good morning. I'm Dr. Anand. I understand you're having trouble remembering things, Mr. Hatter."

The man on the bed winced. "I'm Mr. Hatter?" he asked hesitantly.

"Why don't you tell me everything you remember?" the doctor prompted.

He bit his lip, thinking. There were fuzzy things, impressions only. He shifted, growing nervous. "I can't…. I don't remember anything. I don't even know my name." His eyes went wide with panic. "I don't know my name!"

"Please calm down. Fortunately, whoever mugged you didn't take your wallet. We have to assume, since you were found with only your clothes and wallet, you must have had something else on you they took – cell phone, iPod, that sort of thing." The doctor opened a drawer in a small table next to the bed, and produced a small brown thing with various colored things sticking out. He handed the items to the patient.

The man on the bed looked through them. The brown leather wallet had an identification card. He peered at the picture of an insolently grinning face, with pale skin, dark hair and dark eyes. The name read 'David Hatter'.

"This is me?" he asked, and the doctor nodded. He flipped through more things, a burgundy folder with another picture, indicating something about a united kingdom, a hard flat card with another picture that said Permanent Resident with a bunch of numbers across the bottom, and a green stripe across the back. In the wallet were a number of flimsy green and cream papers, and copper colored key to something.

"Does anything look familiar?" the doctor asked. David Hatter shook his head forlornly. "Well, you did sustain a pretty significant bump to the head. In these cases, memory loss is not unheard of, and it's also usually temporary. Why don't you relax, maybe take another nap? By the time you wake up, it could all have come back."

He agreed, because he could think of nothing else to do.

* * *

Doctor Anand came back hours later with two people in dark navy uniforms. The police man and the police woman were brisk and polite, and properly sympathetic. David Hatter still didn't remember anything about the attack or his past. He couldn't even tell them what city they were in, let alone why he was walking alone near a construction site. His frustration with the blank empty space he had instead of a memory showed on his face, and pretty soon the police gave up.

The woman considered him for a minute. "Mr. Hatter – Doctor Anand says that despite your memory loss, you're perfectly healthy, and could be released this afternoon. Your ID gives a local address – if you like, I can come back in a while and escort you home."

He gave her a crooked smile. "I'd appreciate that. Thank you."

A short time later, he stood and looked at himself in the mirror of the small restroom attached to the hospital room. The purple trousers and patterned shirt weren't like anything he'd seen on anyone else that day. The jacket was battered tan leather, and he frowned as he fingered it, wondering how he could remember _leather_ but not his home, or where he grew up, or if he had family. He contemplated himself in the mirror.

He had wide set dark eyes in a pale face with a snub nose, topped with completely unruly thick dark hair. Scruffy facial hair made him look adult, but he felt young. Though both the nurse and doctor had to have noticed it, they hadn't said anything about the scars that crisscrossed his body, including several odd round ones on his torso that seemed newer than the rest. He was skinny, he realized. The clothes were loose, giving the illusion he was stouter than he was.

He placed the battered hat that had been found with him on his head, and couldn't help the small smile that crossed his face as he looked at himself. At least that seemed perfectly right. He thought he'd looked incomplete, until the hat. When he smiled, a dimple pulled in one cheek, and he decided he rather liked how he looked.

A knock on the door announced the return of the police woman. "Hi, Mr. Hatter."

"Hello," he said.

"Ready to go?"

"Yes, thank you."

She smiled. "You have a hell of an accent," she commented as they walked.

He looked surprised. "I do?"

"Yeah. I like accents. Most British accents I hear are the sort of proper London ones. Yours is more… raw. Authentic."

He thought about that. "It tells you I'm British? That's the United Kingdom?"

She looked at him seriously. "You don't remember anything at all, huh?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Hm. Well, maybe your apartment will bring back the memories."

She drove him to a brick building of about five stories. He followed her in, and onto a lift. They rode up in silence, as he fiddled nervously with the hem of his jacket. He glanced down at his arm, and had a sudden flash – a vision of a small feminine hand in a purple sleeve, holding onto his arm. Then it was gone, and he sighed quietly.

On the top floor, the policewoman paused in front of a door and looked at him expectantly. "Oh!" he exclaimed, and pulled out his wallet. He produced the copper key, and she unlocked the door.

He walked into the apartment in shock. It was nicer than he expected. The kitchen area was all white and black, pristinely clean, with white cabinets, white tiles, and black countertops. A small set of table and chairs stood just beside it, made of dark wood. The rest of the floor was wooden, with a large thick green rug holding a sofa and armchair in dark brown leather, and a dark brown coffee table.

Windows overlooked the street on one wall, and the other wall bore half-filled bookshelves, and a television that looked nicer than the one in the hospital room.

"Anything ring a bell?" the policewoman asked.

"No," he admitted despairingly. There were no photos, no papers, nothing. Like the place was staged, waiting for an inhabitant. The only thing that looked out of place was a book on the coffee table. He picked it up. _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland._ He didn't recognize it at all.

The policewoman looked over his shoulder. "Huh. That's a children's classic, but no kids live here, that's for sure." She prowled around. "Looks like you're a single man, Mr. Hatter."

He watched her. She no doubt hoped for clues as to why he was attacked, but there was nothing here. She headed down a short hallway and he followed.

The bathroom matched the kitchen, all white and black, with white towels on the rack. He frowned at the bottle in the shower, popping the lid to sniff. He winced – that didn't smell like something he'd want to use.

In the bedroom, the large bed was made of the same dark wood as the rest of the furniture, with green bedding. The policewoman gave him a questioning look, and at his nod, she glanced in the closet, where several shirts and suits hung neatly.

"I don't know, Mr. Hatter. You don't seem the type."

"Type?"

"You don't look like a neat-nik. But this… this is obsessive." She waved a hand at the suits, each exactly hung at a uniform distance from the next. "Or you have a _very_ good cleaning lady."

"I don't know," he admitted sheepishly.

"Alright. It's no big deal." She shut the door, and he followed her back out into the main room. "It seems safe, so I'm going to leave you now. Hopefully your memory will come back, or someone who knows you will check in on you. If we find out anything about your attackers, we'll let you know."

"Thank you for your help," he told her earnestly, and she smiled as she waved good bye.

He stood silent and alone in this place he did not recognize. He glanced down at the green carpet. For a moment, it almost looked like living grass, and then he blinked, and the illusion dissipated.

With a heavy sigh, the man called David Hatter went to investigate his cupboards.

* * *

In another apartment a few blocks away, Alice Hamilton rolled up her world map and put her battered childhood copy of _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_ into the hatbox.

"We'll have Chinese, does that sound good?" her mother called from the living room.

"Fine, Mom," Alice called back. Her lips quirked into a small smile as she looked at the classic drawing of the Mad Tea Party on the torn dustcover. _I didn't dream it,_ she told herself. _I couldn't have dreamed up him._

* * *

Come morning, David Hatter was even more confused. The clothes in the closet didn't fit him. The shirts were too broad, the trousers too long. Finally, in a dresser drawer, he found a white pullover shirt that fit reasonably well, and jeans that he could cuff.

The cupboards had been mostly empty. He'd gone to bed hungry. This morning, he'd showered, using the funny smelling stuff he decided he hated, and would replace as soon as he understood how. Then came the fruitless search through the bedroom for suitable clothing.

_These can't be mine,_ he thought with rising panic. _And if these aren't my clothes, then this isn't my apartment. But this IS where David Hatter lives, according to the cards in the wallet, and that IS my face on them!_

The sensation of being molded, changed into someone he didn't know or understand, frightened him. Who was he before?

He sat on the bed and concentrated on breathing normally. He grabbed the hat, and his fingers played and fidgeted with it, twirling it, flipping it. The movements came without thought. Soon he was sending the hat dancing, rolling it down his arm, tossing it from one hand to the other, just letting the motions come without consciously thinking about them. Finally, he flipped the hat straight up, and it fell to land on his head perfectly.

With a long exhale, he felt better. He got his wallet and pulled out all the green pieces of paper. He counted the numbers, and discovered he had two hundreds worth of papers.

He decided to find food first, then clothing that fit. He had to be careful – he didn't know how to get more of the pieces of paper once he ran out.

* * *

He managed to get food at a small place that served it very cheaply. He discovered he didn't like 'coffee', but he did like toast a great deal. He parted with ten papers with a wince. Then he asked the woman serving him, where he could find clothing very cheaply, and she pointed him to a military building.

He wondered, as he looked at the red and white sign, why an army would be involved in selling clothing and furniture, but perhaps they were in peacetime and needed something to do.

Inside he found a few shirts that appealed to him and fit well enough, some black trousers, plus another pair of trousers in brown he thought would be alright with his leather jacket. What really caught his eye was a hat on the wall. A bored looking young man got it down for him. David toyed with the brim a moment. The charcoal fedora was heavier than his brown straw hat. In a moment, it came to him – his hat was a porkpie, this was a fedora. He wasn't sure how he knew that. _Maybe I sell hats?_ he wondered.

In the end, he spent another twenty five pieces of paper.

On the walk home with his plastic bag of clothing, he glanced around at the shops. Many sold food ready to eat, but most seemed too expensive to him. Then he found a large shop that sold many different things. He marked where it was, so he could return once he dropped off his clothes.

The large store was a siren song of temptation. It sold food, it sold things to clean with, it sold strange little message cards, and paper things. _It's a paper world,_ he thought wistfully. He tried to be extremely careful, choosing only food and absolute necessities, but he couldn't resist the black bottle of washing gel to replace the awful one in his apartment. He spent a long time staring at the razors, confused because none of them looked familiar. Eventually, he painfully handed over eighty pieces of paper, but consoled himself with the thought that he should be alright for many days with what he had purchased.

* * *

Alice found it easy enough to lie to her mother. She claimed to have caught up with Jack, gotten into a massive argument, made him admit he was actually engaged to another woman, and then stormed away. She didn't remember who mugged her, and expressed relief that the mysterious attacker didn't do anything worse upon discovering she had no money on her. Her mother was doing enough emoting about Jack's infidelity and Alice's lucky escape for both of them.

She'd been sore and tired for a day or two, but eventually she went back to the dojo. Her sensei had given her the days off without question. Alice found the routine of classes soothing, though she had new insight into the efficiency of martial arts. Still, she couldn't help sometimes remembering a certain man's wild scrapping technique, backed by a fist that could crush marble.

Alice wouldn't say she was pining… but she was, just a little. Everything about her farewell with Hatter had seemed uncomfortable, unreal, dishonest. Upon reflection, it had felt like everything he said was the opposite of what he meant. Which meant that his 'hell no' may have meant 'hell yes'.

But he was on the other side of a magical portal, and there was no going back. All she could do was live with her regrets, nothing new there. Sometimes it seemed like her life was nothing but one big regret.

She had a lot of time to think about it, now that she wasn't avidly searching the world for her father. When she lay on her bed and closed her eyes, she saw Hatter's grinning face, and remembered how warm he'd been in her arms when they'd hugged in the casino. How he'd fought with her without implying she was inferior or holding a grudge, or the admiring glint in his eyes she'd caught when she'd taken down the suit.

Several days after her adventure, she found herself crying quietly into her pillow. _He could have been the One,_ she realized, and her regret and sorrow almost suffocated her.

* * *

He liked tea, he discovered. Any sort of tea, but some were better than others. It was easier too, to fill up on tea and leave off eating, but he rather thought that tendency might explain how skinny he was.

He'd gathered up the suits and shirts that didn't fit, and found another cheap clothing store called 'GoodWill', where they traded him his suits for clothes he wanted.

No one had tried to contact him, so he didn't know if he was wanted somewhere to work in any way. Maybe he'd been on holiday? He educated himself using the television, but even he recognized a lot of what he saw was just nonsense. When the weather was good, he spent all day outside, watching people, wandering aimlessly. He liked when he caught people's eye, smiling and nodding. It made him feel less invisible.

Loneliness grabbed him sometimes, in the night, making his breath catch in his throat. He felt utterly disconnected from the world. He had no past, no friends, no job, no purpose. If he were to die, no one would notice. The anxiety seized him sometimes outside as well. He had terrible urges to jump up on a bus-stop bench and shout _Who am I?_ at the sky.

Reading helped pass the time. He read the _Alice_ book, but didn't understand it. It gave him terrible dreams, of Queens and beheadings, an implacable enemy with a strangely featureless rabbit's head, a narcoleptic androgynous character, also strangely featureless, a room with grass and flowers instead of carpeting.

Sometimes he dreamed of a woman, as pale and dark as he, with blue eyes like the sky, fringed in black lacy lashes. He didn't know her, but he longed for her. Those dreams made him toss and turn, and in the mornings he couldn't remember anything beyond vague impressions of her face.

* * *

He'd miscalculated, and the expression of dismay on his face made the waitress take pity on him.

"Got a debit card? I can run that instead."

He shook his head with regret. "I'm very terribly sorry." He'd miscounted or miscalculated, and now he didn't have enough green papers for the food he'd just eaten. "Can I – work it off?" he asked.

The waitress pursed her lips. "Lemme ask Joe."

Joe turned out to be a massive man who cooked the food. He eyed David sourly. "Well… it's a bit old fashioned, but you can wash dishes. C'mon."

Minutes later, David found himself in a stained old apron, elbow deep in soapy water as he scraped and washed dirty dishes from the diner to pay for his breakfast. He worked hard as he grimly contemplated his fate. He was out of paper money. He had no job. He had no memory, so it wasn't like he could even find a job – he didn't know what he could do. He'd come to understand at that some point, he'd need to pay for his apartment. He wasn't sure when that would be. He'd been living second to second for more than a week now, and he was just about at the breaking point.

Joe apparently noticed when David harshly scrubbed a pot for the third time into shining like stainless steel after the lunch rush had gone. "Whoa. What's your problem, kid?"

Haltingly, David explained. Pretty soon, Joe and Jeanie the waitress, the owners of the place, were shaking their heads sympathetically.

"That ain't right, just releasing you from the hospital like that. Healthcare today, I tell ya," Joe said disparagingly. "You probably didn't have an insurance card on ya, so they tossed you out as quick as they could."

Jeanie suggested, "Aren't there programs and things? Down at City Hall?"

"Maybe," Joe thought about it. "Tell ya what, David. I can't afford to put you on payroll, but tomorrow morning, you come in here. We'll feed ya breakfast, and then after the morning rush is gone, Jeanie here can run you down to City Hall, see if there isn't something they can do for ya."

David grinned in thanks and relief.

* * *

She really tried. That morning, Alice woke up and vowed to herself to forget about Hatter, and Charlie, and Wonderland altogether. It was gone and lost, and she was never getting them back. She lifted her chin as she looked at herself in the mirror, and told herself there was no use crying over spilled milk.

She recited a number of similar clichés that day, until she got to the dojo and became absorbed in her classes.

* * *

A flurry of movement caught David's eye as Jeanie walked with him towards City hall. He glanced up at a second story, where wide bay windows showed people in funny white pajamas going through specific movements. "What's that?" he asked her.

Jeanie glanced up. "Oh, that's a karate studio. Or… judo? I'm not sure what it's called. It's a martial art studio." At his confused expression, she said, "It's a fighting style, from the far east."

David looked back up again, in time to see one person toss another over their shoulder. It caused a sudden flare in him, one of those strange visions. Instead of people in white pajamas, it was his dream woman, in blue, tossing a man in black over her shoulder. He shook his head, startled. Those visions had been fading, becoming less frequent as he gave up trying to remember anything about his lost past, resigning himself to this half a life.

Jeanie led him to City Hall, and left him in Human Services. He waited, talked to some people, waited some more, and then was eventually told that someone would contact him.

He was un-gently hustled out of the office, and he scowled a little. That had been useless. Walking back home in the afternoon light, he stopped to stare up at the martial arts studio again. He couldn't see much, but what he saw was interesting.

David sat on a bus-stop bench across the road, and just watched the people practice their martial arts until the sun set.

* * *

Alice hoisted her duffle onto her shoulder and waved goodnight to her Sensei in the office at the back of the dojo. Her last class had finished and she was done for the evening. Alice smiled to herself. It had felt good to lose herself in the classes and the forms. She'd gotten in a great sparring session with one of the other black belts, and the challenge of facing someone as skilled as herself had fired her up.

She checked the weather with only a glance out the bay windows, before bounding down the stairs. Emerging onto the street, she instinctively gave her surroundings a fast scan. She looked up the sidewalk, across the street, eyes brushing over the bus-stop, and down…

Wait….

She looked back towards the bus-stop, and the lone figure seated at the end of the bench.

"It can't be," she breathed. Tan jacket, purple pants. A battered tan hat perched on top of unruly dark hair. His face was turned up to the windows of the dojo. She hurried to the corner to cross the street, approaching the seated man from an angle.

Hope leapt up in her heart, as Alice cried, "Hatter!"

* * *

"Hatter!"

Turning at the sound of his name, he watched the woman run towards him with surprise. Startled to realize she looked a lot like his dream woman, he stood to meet her.

With a cry of joy, the woman launched herself into his arms. Since waking that day in the hospital, he hadn't been touched by a single person. The feeling of a warm body in his arms, pressed against him, made him gasp.

"Oh, this feels good," he muttered, not even sure he knew her, but swamped in the delight of human contact.

She giggled in his arms. "You always say that!" She tightened her grip. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you." She stepped back and smiled up at him.

His eyes devoured her face which was pale and heart-shaped, with big eyes of sky blue fringed in lacy black. Her dark hair formed a shining curtain. Her face filled in all the gaps of his dreaming mind, and he realized suddenly that this was the woman he'd spent his nights yearning for. But who was she?

"I – I–" He reached for a name, but couldn't grasp it. "I know you. But… I can't remember you!"

"Hatter? What do you mean?"

Helpless, he asked, "What's your name?" His hands still rested on her arms, and he felt his grip tighten with his frustration. "I know you – I've seen you in my dreams for a week. But… I don't remember you, I don't remember anything."

She looked terrified for him. "Hatter… I'm Alice."

"Alice. Alice." He repeated it to himself, imprinting her on his virgin memory. "You're Alice. I'm… Hatter? Like the book?"

She giggled, this time more nervous and hysterical. "Does this look like a kid's story to you?" She said, like she was offering him something.

The phrase bounced around in his head. He could almost hear himself saying it. "I read that book, it didn't make any sense…. The book! The book was on the table, it was a clue!"

"Hatter, you're scaring me."

He let go of her, stepping back. "I'm sorry."

"No, wait. I mean… you really don't remember me?" A note of dismay and sorrow crept into her voice.

He sighed, fidgeting with his jacket hem, a habit he'd developed. "Eight days ago," he began, "I woke up in a hospital bed. I have no memory before that day." He watched her take in this information, shock filling her expression. "I had a wallet, and a passport, and a permanent resident card. And the clothes on my back. And my hat." She smiled a little at that. "And a key to an apartment where…." He hesitated, and then whispered confidingly, "where none of the clothes fit me. They weren't MY clothes, I don't think."

He took a chance. "I read the Alice book, and afterwards I had nightmares. And when I don't have nightmares, I dream of … a woman with blue eyes and dark hair, smiling at me." Her expression turned soft and affectionate at that, and he felt relief. "I'm out of green paper. Today I went to City Hall for help, but they just said they'd contact me."

"Hatter…" Alice reached out and took his hand, lacing her fingers through his. She stepped close again, and leaned her head against his chest. Daring, he rested his cheek against her hair. Her warmth and her closeness were intoxicating. She took in a deep breath, as if inhaling him. "You are still my Hatter. A little lost and battered maybe, but still Hatter. C'mon, we'll go to your apartment and see what we can figure out."

He nodded and led her through the streets. As they walked, he kept stealing glances at her, and at their joined hands.

"Do you always call me by my last name?" he asked.

She looked up at him, confused. "As far as I knew, that was your only name."

"Oh." He frowned. After a beat, he said, "David. David Hatter. That's the name on the cards and things."

"Okay."

* * *

Alice frowned. The building Hatter led her to was the same one where Jack had lived. But instead of Jack's third floor apartment, Hatter led her to a fifth floor. She wondered if maybe the building was owned by the Resistance.

Inside, the place seemed hollow. Empty. Certainly it didn't contain the casual clutter of Hatter's tea shop office. Nor the bright colors.

"I could… make us some tea, if you like?" Hatter offered sheepishly.

"That would be great." She looked around as he filled a kettle. After a moment, she turned to see him watching her. "What?"

"You've never been here before. Right? You don't know this place?"

"I don't," she admitted.

His expression turned frightened. "I knew it. I knew something was wrong here." He stepped back from the counter, eyeing it like he expected it to suddenly attack. "None of the clothes fit. The wash gel in the shower smelled wrong. No food, no tea in the kitchen. This isn't my home. This isn't my LIFE!" His voice got louder and more frantic, rising to a shout by the end.

"Hatter!" Alice rushed to him to grab his arms. It terrified her to see him like this. This wasn't the Hatter she knew at all. This man was lost and frightened, nervous and uncomfortable. Her Hatter was cock-sure and confident, even when he was in danger. "Calm down, please! It's alright."

"How can it be alright? I don't even know how you know me." His breath hitched like he wanted to cry.

Alice drew him out of the kitchenette and over to sit on the sofa with her. She kept a tight hold of him, and it made her heart ache to see him look at her like she could explain everything to him. But she had to try. "Hatter… David. I'm going to tell you some things that are going to sound… crazy. Just bear with me, hear me out, alright?"

He nodded, and she launched into the tale of how they'd met. He listened, confused often, making a face when she described the City, looking embarrassed when she talked of their first meeting.

He only interrupted once. "I was a _drug dealer_?" he asked, aghast.

"It's not really like that, it's…. yeah, sort of." Hatter looked humiliated. "It's alright though. That's in Wonderland, not here." She went on to talk about the Great Library, and Dodo. He looked shocked when she told him he'd taken a bullet for her. Then the escape to Tulgey Wood, and meeting Charlie. How they'd rescued her from the Casino, and then how she went with Jack, and he followed, and they got captured again.

When she told him she thought he'd been beaten up, he stood abruptly. "What?" she asked, but he walked away to the bathroom, pulling at his shirt. When she caught up, he was frowning at himself shirtless in the mirror. Alice could see the scars on him from countless fights, but he was poking at one of several circular burn scars on his torso. "Oh, god," she murmured.

"Electric prod. Is that something you've heard of?" he asked, and she nodded, her fingers covering her mouth. "I had nightmares about….two identical men, using electric prods on me. And a man with a white rabbit's head."

"Mad March," Alice breathed. "Oh god, Hatter. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I got you into the whole crazy mess, and they hurt you…" she couldn't keep the tears from falling down her face.

He gave her a wild look of amazement, that she'd be apologizing to him, and then he wrapped his arms around her. Pressed against his bare chest, Alice shivered at the feel of his warm smooth skin. "Shh, not your fault, Alice love," he whispered. The instinctive affection and protection in his voice surprised them both. He let go quickly, but Alice threw her arms around his neck before he could back away.

"Don't," she said quickly. She couldn't help but to pull him down and kiss him.

He moaned softly into the kiss, his hands sliding around her waist to hold her close again. Her fingers tangled into his hair as she mapped his lips with her own. When they finally parted, they stared into each other's eyes.

"We're… we're together?" he asked.

"We are now," she told him. "I think… I think we were always meant to be." She blushed. "That was our first kiss."

"Oh." A bright grin pulled at his cheeks, flashing his dimple at her. "I'm glad. This way I'll remember it."

Alice laughed. At least some of the essential Hatter-ness was still in there.

* * *

Back on the sofa, Alice finished her tale, and David could hardly believe it. But she was so serious and so detailed, it had to be true, as incredible as it sounded.

"So, I'm not actually _from_ here," he stated, and she agreed.

"I can't think of how you got the paperwork and the key unless someone helped you get set up here, but that doesn't explain why you lost your memory. Except…" She frowned as she worked something out in her head. "I was unconscious when I landed too. I also woke up in the hospital. But the Queen's suits went back and forth without any problems."

He made a face. "I'm not a Suit am I?"

"No… and maybe that's the answer. Maybe there's something about being a Suit that makes it easy. Jack remembered his life in Wonderland, I'm sure, but then he's a Suit. He was the Jack of Hearts."

David chewed on his lips, and suggested, "Maybe that Jack kicked me out of Wonderland."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because you turned him down." His smile turned wry. "For me. Maybe he let me go through the Looking Glass knowing I'd lose my memory. So I'd never find you."

"But you did find me," Alice pointed out.

"Luck, I'm afraid. Sheer luck. But you said I was a tea dealer. I could be a wanted criminal now, if Jack made the Teas outlawed."

Alice shook her head. "No, I don't think so. Lots of Suits saw you stand by me in that last confrontation with the queen. I mean, you threatened her with a switchblade! That's kind of heroic."

He blushed at her words. "Still, at least I now know how I lost my memory." He smiled at her shyly. "And I have you."

"That you do," she confirmed, and she leaned towards him to kiss him sweetly.

He shivered as their lips met. This was new and sweet and wonderful, and though he still wanted his life back, at least now he wasn't alone. He had this beautiful woman to help him.

When they finally separated, he asked "What do you think we should do now?"

She frowned as she thought about it. "I think, maybe, we should try to go back to Wonderland."

"Really?"

"Yes. If this is Forgetfulness tea, then it can be reversed. Or maybe all your memories will come back as soon as we get there, and then we can figure out a way for you to keep them when you come back."

David looked at her for a long moment, wondering what sort of person he had been, to win the loyalty of a woman so brave and beautiful and strong as Alice.

* * *

Alice left him alone that night in the not-his apartment. Her idea that someone in Wonderland had provided him a key made sense; this wasn't originally his home, it was his _new_ home. That thought made him a bit more comfortable in the place. She promised to come to him in the morning, and they'd try to find a way to Wonderland.

They staked out the warehouse construction site where Alice believed the Looking Glass was located, and decided their best option was to wait until Friday evening, after all the workers were gone for the day.

Alice still worked most days in the martial arts studio. He would wait for her to get done, and then she would walk to his home, and they would spend the evening talking together. She showed him how to cook various foods, things of her world he would not have thought of. She also found out that he could collect something called Unemployment. She made those arrangements for him, though it would be some time before he saw any money.

It made David uncomfortable that Alice paid for so much for him. She bought him enough food to get through the rest of the week, including a new tea that brought tears to his eyes, it was so delicious. But when he protested, she simply smiled and kissed him, and said she wanted to take care of him, as he had taken care of her.

Finally Friday night arrived. Alice led him to the warehouse. At her suggestion, he had on exactly the clothes he'd had in the hospital, and for some reason the sight of him made her grin.

"That's my Hatter," she'd said, and he'd blushed at the look in her eyes.

Alice had declared she would go prepared this time, and wore jeans and a shirt and had a jacket of her own of black leather, plus boots. She also had a small bag across her shoulder, which she said contained 'essential supplies, just in case'.

They approached the site, surprised to see new fencing and locks.

"Damn it," Alice swore, glaring at the padlock.

David peered at it, then asked, "Do you have something skinny… like a pin?"

With an intrigued look, she handed him a hair pin. David held the lock in one hand, the pin in the other, and closed his eyes. Then, without thought, he opened his eyes, and briskly picked the lock.

"How did you do that?" Alice whispered, impressed.

"I don't know. I just knew."

Alice smirked at him. "Is it bad that I find your criminal tendencies utterly sexy?" He blushed at her playful leer.

Inside the building, they quickly found the Looking Glass. To David, it appeared to be nothing more than an enormous mirror.

Alice walked up to it cautiously. David couldn't restraint his gasp when she reached out one hand, and pressed it _through_ the mirror's surface.

"It's active!" she exclaimed with glee. She turned back to him, and offered him her other hand. "Let's go." When he hesitated, she gave him a warm smile. "Hatter… trust me, please. I believe this will help." Something in her smile turned humorous. "It's perfectly safe… safe-ish."

For the second time, her phrasing echoed in his head, and he guessed she was quoting something he'd said to her in the past.

"Right, then," he said with a deep fortifying breath. He took her hand, and let Alice lead him through the Looking Glass.

* * *

_To Be Continued_


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Frighteningly enough, whole parts of this wrote itself without me consciously realizing it… in particular, some of Hatter's lines. That's kind of scary.

* * *

_Tell me your troubles and doubts  
Giving me everything inside and out and  
Love's strange, so real in the dark  
Think of the tender things that we were working on_

_Simple Minds_

* * *

The terrifying feeling of falling out of the sky was his first sensation. Then it ended abruptly and he stumbled, staggering as he gasped for breath. He could feel something gripping his hand.

"Breathe!" someone ordered, and he gasped in air. He turned to look, and it was a woman with long dark hair holding his hand. His knees suddenly gave way, and he fell to the ground. He looked around at the room he was in. It was dark and strange. Light came from one end, and a large rippling surface covered the other.

There were more people here, some in yellow clothing, others in black, and they all stared at him. He shuddered in fear. He didn't know where he was, or why they looked at him.

He couldn't even remember his name.

The woman shook his arm to get his attention. "Hatter? Hatter, are you alright?"

Was that his name? He stared up at her, the only thing that seemed safe in the entire room. "Who?" he asked piteously. "Is that me?" He needed confirmation that was his name.

"Oh god, it happened _again_!" she exclaimed, kneeling next to him. Her free hand came up to caress his face. The action was gentle and comforting, and he instinctively leaned into her touch. "Listen to me. You're Hatter. I'm Alice. I'm taking care of everything, alright?"

He nodded tentatively. He was lost and confused and willing to let someone so lovely and gentle tell him what to do.

One of the men in black came over to them. "Lady Alice!" he exclaimed. "How did you find him?"

The Alice woman looked up at the man. "You knew this would happen?"

Quickly the man explained, "We knew the Hatter had gone through the Looking Glass to your world, presumably to follow you. The King's technicians found the unauthorized journey during a routine system check. White Rabbit agents discovered the Hatter had contacted an old Resistance forger for paperwork prior to the unauthorized transfer."

"He snuck through?" The Alice woman seemed astonished. Her glance at Hatter where he cowered on the floor was surprised and impressed and a little dismayed.

"Yes. When the King realized this, he planned a mission to retrieve the Hatter for just this reason. These agents were just about to head through to find him." The man waved a hand at Hatter. "Hatter didn't get the Inoculation."

Alice's grip on Hatter tightened, but it felt protective, not angry. "Inoculation?" she asked.

"The Looking Glass strips all memory from Wonderland inhabitants that pass through it, unless they're given an Inoculation to combat the effects. All Suits assigned to White Rabbit get it."

"What about Jack?"

"His Majesty was inoculated by a White Rabbit Agent helping the Resistance before he went through to find you."

"Hatter's not… you're not going to arrest him or something, are you?"

"No, Lady, not at all. The mission was planned to retrieve and treat him at the Hospital of Dreams, then inoculate him properly, if he still wanted to follow you."

The man called Hatter stared up at the woman. For whatever reason, he understood he'd done this to himself, to be with her. So perhaps he loved her? That made sense. After all, she was obviously beautiful and kind and she must care about him too, because she said she'd take care of everything.

"So this memory loss can be reversed?"

"Yes, my Lady."

"Well, then, let's go." She looked back at Hatter. Her voice was noticeably softer when she spoke to him. "C'mon, stand up for me? We're going to get you some help."

He nodded and stood with her. He kept his eyes on her, his touchstone in this place where he recognized nothing and no one. The man in black led them out of the room into the sunlight. He couldn't restrain his gasp when he realized they'd stepped onto a ledge far above the ground.

"I know," Alice whispered to him. A wistful smile pulled at her lips. "I have to say, it's a little odd to see you bothered by it."

He shook his head. "Surprised," he told her, but couldn't explain why. "It's nice, the view I mean."

Her thumb stroked his hand. "You aren't afraid of heights. That's me," she told him.

"Alright," he said, and pulled her a little closer to him, away from the ledges as they walked. His instant protectiveness put a shine in her eyes. Now he was quite sure they loved one another.

* * *

Being greeted by the Caterpillar surprised Alice. She'd thought he'd died.

"Welcome back," he said soberly. His eyes surveyed Hatter, who kept nervously close to Alice's side. "Looking Glass Disease?"

"Yes," answered the man in black robes. "His Majesty should have warned you he'd need treatment."

The Caterpillar nodded. "This is the result of mad impulsiveness. My information about Hatter confirms it."

Alice glared at him. She didn't like what he implied. "Can you treat him or not?" she demanded.

Caterpillar blinked slowly at her. "I wonder, if he knew, what he might choose to forget."

"You are _not_ going to talk around me," Alice stated. "You don't get to decide for him, and you don't get to experiment on him."

"And you do get to decide for him?" asked Caterpillar with a tilt of his head.

Hatter answered before Alice could. "Yes." Everyone looked at him with surprise, Alice in particular. He met her eyes before looking back at the Caterpillar. "I don't remember anything before just a little while ago, but I trust Alice. If she says I have to get some treatment, then I'll get it."

A slightly amused expression crossed Caterpillar's face. "Very well then." He led Alice and Hatter to a room with a bed. Two nurses in white were preparing the room. "Lie down," he ordered Hatter.

Nervously, Hatter obeyed after Alice gave him an encouraging nod, setting aside his jacket. He still yelped when the two people started strapping him to the bed.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Alice cried, reaching out to stop them.

"The treatment will essentially cause him to relive his entire life in his head. This sometimes leads to involuntary movements, convulsions, and attempts to act out the memories. Generally, restraining the patient is the safest course." Caterpillar's dry explanation mollified them both.

"Will it hurt him?" Alice asked, which earned her a relieved look from Hatter. He clearly wanted to know, but didn't want to ask.

Caterpillar gave Alice another one of his blank long looks. "Do you have memories that hurt?" he asked her bluntly.

She winced, going a little pale. "Some. Emotionally, not physically."

"The Hatter will relive all of his memories, but not consciously. Memories of physical activity may cause a physical reaction."

One of the nurses handed Caterpillar a syringe of yellow fluid, then both hastily retreated. "You should leave now," he told Alice, reaching for Hatter's arm.

"Why?"

Caterpillar looked surprised to be challenged. "You could be drawn in, trapped in Hatter's memories. It's best if you wait outside."

Alice frowned. "I don't know what you mean, but I'm staying with him," she asserted. Hatter gave her a grateful look.

"It's dangerous," Caterpillar objected.

"I don't care. I'm staying with him."

The medical man gave her a measuring look. Then he abruptly turned and injected Hatter, who made a little hurt noise as the needle jabbed into his arm. Caterpillar depressed the plunger, sending the yellow potion into Hatter's body. He pulled the needle out, and gave Alice a disapproving look. "I have no advice for you. No one has ever stayed in the room during this treatment." He did not wish her luck as he left.

Alice stuck her tongue out at his back as the door shut behind him. Hatter gave a little chuckle, stymied by the sudden sound of locks snapping into place. They exchanged a worried look.

"What's going to happen?" he asked.

Alice brushed his hair from his face, soothing him with her touch. "I don't know. But I'm here, we're together, that's all that matters."

"Alright," he said placidly. Then he yawned. "It's making me sleepy."

"Then sleep," Alice advised him. "I'm here."

Trustingly, Hatter's eyes fell closed.

* * *

Alice's first indicator that something strange was happening was the mist. It seemed to ooze from the walls, making the edges of the room indistinct. She'd waited until Hatter was truly asleep before curling up as best she could on the bed with him. The room itself held only the bed, nothing else. She sat up on the edge of the bed and eyed the mists nervously.

Then from somewhere, she heard the murmur of voices and laughter. It wasn't pleasant laughter. It was sharp, forced, and fake. She couldn't make out the words, but the room grew more and more hazy.

She was about to stand when a small hand grabbed her shirt. When she turned, instead of an adult Hatter strapped to a hospital bed, she found herself sitting next to a very young boy, both of them on a stained and worn mattress. He held the index finger of his other hand to his lips, signaling for silence.

Looking around, Alice could see the faint outlines of some sort of ramshackle kitchen room, as much junk room as kitchen. She realized the mattress lay beneath a stairwell, and the noises came from upstairs.

Since she stayed quiet, the boy let go of her shirt to wrap both his arms around his knees as he sat hunched against the brick wall. The noises upstairs changed, became quieter. As Alice listened closely, she flushed to realize what she was overhearing – the rhythmic pants and cries, the steady squeaks of an unstable bed-frame. Eventually, the noises grew to a crescendo, and the boy pressed his face against his knees, his hands moving to cover his ears. Finally, the voices quieted, and for a short time, there was peace.

But then a woman's voice was raised in anger. There was shouting, which ended with the sound of a slap and someone falling. A door slammed somewhere.

Alice glanced at the boy, whose large dark eyes met hers. Her heart was squeezed in her chest as Alice realized this was Hatter's childhood.

A door directly above slammed open. Heavy feet stomped down the stairs.

A feeling of fear and nerves swept through Alice. With a glance, she realized she felt what the younger Hatter felt.

The woman who came into view was barely dressed in a stained and torn negligee. Her thigh-high stockings had several runs, and her dark hair was frizzy and mussed. She muttered imprecations to herself as she crossed the room to a sink, setting a bottle of blue liquid beside her as she dampened a scrap of cloth serving as a towel, Alice guessed, and pressed it against her bruising cheek. She was boney and lean, the negligee barely hanging on to a pointy shoulder.

The woman turned then. To Alice's surprise, the woman didn't see her, just bent a glare on the silent boy beside her.

"What are you looking at?" she snarled at the boy. Her grimace revealed a dimple just like Hatter's.

"I'm not looking, Flower."

"Damn straight, you little bastard." She crossed the room and yanked the boy out of the bolt hole. She gave him a shake that rocked his head on his neck, and made him cry out. Terror swept through Alice as well. "See this?" she demanded, holding up the bottle. "Barely half a measure of Calm! That asshole stiffed me!" Her chortle was malicious. "He couldn't stiff me proper, so he stiffed me on the fee! Let that be a lesson to you – Payment Up Front." She dropped the boy, leaving him where he lay. His sniffles reached Alice's ears, but the woman ignored them. She clutched the bottle to her breast and headed for the stairs.

"Flower?" The boy's voice was weak and breathy from his crying. "Are we gonna eat today?"

The woman gave him a blank stare. "I am," was all she said as she left him.

The boy crawled back to his bolt hole, ignoring Alice, who silently wept in shared despair for his pains. He curled into a ball, wrapping his arms tight against a stomach no doubt growling with hunger.

"Payment up front," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Alice rubbed the tears from her eyes, but when she opened them, the boy was gone. She looked around. She still sat in the basement kitchen, on the same grimy mattress.

The door above banged open, and quick light footfalls hurried down the stairs. The younger Hatter appeared again, perhaps a bit older this time. His urgency and hunger made her heart leap into her throat. He had some bundle in his arms. Hatter made immediately for the bolt hole, and Alice dodged out of his way as he slipped by her, seeming not to see her. He set down the bundle, and carefully prized a brick from the wall. Behind it was a black dark hole, but Hatter fearlessly stuck his hand in, feeling around. Withdrawing his hand, he opened the bundle, and Alice saw he had several stale crumbling scones. One by one, he put them in his hiding place, keeping back only half of the last. As soon as the brick was slotted back in its hole, he quickly devoured the crumbling half a scone. He even went so far as to carefully pick up every crumb with a damp finger.

A slam above drew both Hatter's and Alice's eyes to the underside of the stairs. "Where are you, you brat?" came the shriek, and Hatter's eyes grew wide. Alice's pulse raced in terror.

For only the second time, he acknowledged Alice's presence, meeting her gaze wildly, and gesturing again for silence. Alice realized with shock that he _could _see her. She hadn't been entirely sure until this moment.

Flower stormed down the stairs, looking even skinnier than before. "You bastard!" she shrieked in fury.

Hatter cowered back, but the pale and boney hand that darted into his bolt hole seized on his thick hair, and dragged him out by it. Alice whimpered in shared fear.

"Please no, Flower!"

Flower threw him down on the stone floor. Then she kicked him hard in the ribs. Alice gasped in horror. "You stole my PASSION TEA, you nasty little snipe! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?" When Hatter tried to get up, she slapped him hard.

Alice lurched up, fighting the fear, intending to throw Flower away from Hatter, but her hands passed right through the woman's body without any reaction! She tried again, getting between Flower and Hatter, but the woman's kick went right through Alice to land on Hatter unimpeded.

Hatter sobbed into the floor, trying to curl up enough to protect himself from Flower's attacks. "I poured it out! The Tea is bad for you!"

"Bad for me!" Flower sneered. "You little shit – the tea is the only way I can get through the goddamned day! You think I _enjoy_ those asshole johns? Maybe you should find out how much fun it is? Huh? Maybe I'll sell your sweet virgin ass on the street for a measure of Bliss, how does that sound?" She never stopped the rain of kicks and blows on the boy, who writhed in pain.

Hatter cried in terror, "Stop! Please, Mum!"

In a towering inferno of rage, Flower roared, "DO NOT CALL ME MUM!" She might have killed him then, but her emaciated body couldn't support the energy of her fury. She soon stopped both the blows and the yelling. The only sound came from Hatter's hiccupping sobs.

"Remember this, boy. You're a bastard and you're worthless. If I thought I could get anything for you, I'd sell you so fast your head would spin." With that cruelty, Flower left him lying in the dust.

Tears almost blinded Alice. She couldn't believe this was the childhood her love had endured. She staggered over to the sink, nausea rising in her gut. But then, she brushed against a box, and it moved in response.

Alice realized suddenly that she _could_ interact with the world around her, and whirling, she reached for the ragged towel. She could pick it up! She swiftly turned on the water, soaking the towel. When she looked back at Hatter, he was staring at her.

She moved softly towards him, not wanting to scare him more. Slow tears ran down his face, matching her own tears. As gently as she could, Alice reached for him. When he didn't shy away, she carefully cleaned away his tears and the blood. Flower had split his lip, bruised his face, and cut his forehead with her blows. A trickle of blood leaked from his ear, making Alice worry that Flower had ruptured Hatter's eardrum with one of her cuffs. Alice cleaned him up as best as she could, and he just let her.

She went to put the towel back, and when she was done, Hatter had crawled back into his bolt hole. Alice joined him there, and for a long time they just looked at each other.

Finally, he whispered, "You tried to stop her."

Alice hadn't realized he'd seen that. "Yeah. But I couldn't. I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "But you tried."

"Yeah."

After a little while, he sighed, and made himself comfortable in his corner. He kept his eyes on her, silent and grave, until at last his eyelids fluttered, then closed. For a second, it seemed he whispered to himself, and Alice shut her ears in fear he was reminding himself of Flower's cruel words. At last, he slept.

* * *

The mists blurred her vision again, but now she realized it meant she was moving into another memory. This time, they were still in the basement, but Hatter looked to be about ten years old. He looked slightly better fed too. He was assembling a tray. It looked like he was preparing a regular tea. His tentative contentment gave her relief.

He carefully lifted the tray and carried it up the stairs. Quickly, Alice followed.

The upstairs looked like a one room apartment. It had a seating area of battered and worn furniture, and a brass double bed against one wall. Alice could see Flower sprawled across the bed.

Hatter spared the unconscious whore a nervous glance as he crossed the room.

"Don't worry, kid. She's hopped up on Euphoria." The voice came from a man seated in one of the chairs. He wore a dapper linen suit, rumpled but still decent, with a straw hat on his head. Alice immediately thought he didn't look the type to be buying a two dollar whore like Flower. Young Hatter put the tea tray down in front of him. He leaned forward, lifting the lid of the chipped pot to peer inside. "Well done, Davey. Took your lessons to heart, did you?"

"Yes sir," Hatter answered shyly. Pleasure at the praise coiled through him, and Alice felt it.

"Good. My friends will be here soon. Why don't you go out for a while?" The man produced a couple of silver coins from a pocket. "Get yourself something to eat, maybe."

Hatter's eyes grew round. "Thanks, Griffin!" He took the coins reverently, secreting them in a pocket. Elation quickened his breathing.

"Don't forget to practice reading, too, Davey."

"I won't, I promise," Hatter swore. Alice realized that whoever this Griffin was, he'd had a positive impact on Hatter.

She followed the boy out into the aerial streets of Wonderland City. Hatter hesitated, no doubt deciding which way to go for his hours of freedom. As he selected a route and started off, he glanced back towards his house. Alice did too, and nearly stumbled to see several men headed there, including one who looked suspiciously like a younger Dodo!

She stopped to look closer, to make sure, but the mists rose up again.

* * *

The next memory started on the street. She was behind Hatter as he peered around a corner. He looked no older than he was in the last memory. As she stepped forward, a rock tumbled against her foot, and Hatter whirled to stare at her.

How he could see her and hear her and interact with her in these memories, she had no idea, but it was clear the memory-Hatter wasn't too surprised to see her. "Shh," he hissed. Then he waved her closer.

Leaning over him, she saw they were spying on his own front door. "Griffin and his friends are over," he whispered to her, curiosity and mischievousness leaching from him into her.

"What are they doing?" she asked. She had a suspicion it was a Resistance meeting, but she didn't dare tell this memory-Hatter that.

"I don't know."

"You like Griffin?" she wondered.

"Yeah." For the first time since this started, she saw his crooked dimpled smile. "He brings food and tea. Then he screws Flower, gets her high on Tea, and his friends come over and they talk. He sends me away usually."

"But you want to know what's going on."

"Yeah. It's alright though – I once thought maybe he wanted me like Flower, but he just teaches me stuff. And once he gave me money. He told me to get food, but I saved it instead. Maybe they're all screwing Flower together. I don't know."

Alice winced to hear a boy of barely ten talk about prostitution and pedophilia like it was perfectly normal. But to Hatter, it was perfectly normal. This was his life.

His shrewd eyes noted her reaction. "You don't like it," he observed.

"I don't like that your life is so… tricky."

He nodded with the wisdom of childhood. "Because of who you are."

Alice blinked. "Do you know who I am?"

He shrugged. "You're my friend. You come and go. Only I can see you."

"That doesn't bother you?"

"Why should it?"

Alice didn't have an answer for that.

"Shit!" the boy hissed suddenly, his whole body tensing. "Suits!" The electric zing of sudden danger tensed them both.

Alice followed his pointed finger to the contingent of the Queen's Suits marching down the ledge towards Hatter's home. With a sinking feeling, Alice guessed what sort of memory was about to play out here.

Hatter whimpered, but didn't move as the Suits broke into the house. Faint shouting could be heard, and then the pops of gunfire. Not long afterwards, the Suits emerged bearing a bloodied Griffin between them. They frog-marched the man away, dragging his nearly limp body along.

The boy's restraint was remarkable. He didn't charge out at the Suits, he didn't call out. He was frozen and pale, his knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the building. He turned his face up to give Alice one wild frightened look. Then once the Suits were out of sight, he ran across the narrow catwalk across the crevasse, to the house where the door hung limply open.

Alice followed, squelching her fear of heights to run after him. Inside a bloodbath greeted their horrified gaze. Three men were dead, two on the floor, one bleeding out over the worn chintz loveseat.

Flower still sprawled across the bed, an expression of drunken surprise forever frozen on her face, a trickle of blood leaking from the bullet hole above her left eye.

Young Hatter hardly spared his dead mother a glance. On the floor lay Griffin's straw hat. Alice realized with a jolt that she knew that hat. Hatter leaned over and picked up the hat. Grief tore a gasp from her throat.

* * *

A blur of memories followed, almost too fast for Alice's mind to comprehend. She recognized they were mostly about living on the streets of the City, lots of running and stealing and fights. Young Hatter survived on odd jobs and thievery. To her relief, he seemed to have a sixth sense about which people meant more than normal danger, and avoided them easily.

One memory in particular stood out, as a trio of older boys tried to take a bundle of food away from a thirteen year old Hatter. One of the boys was idly sorting through it as the others punched Hatter. But then one of the punchers grabbed the straw hat from Hatter's head, throwing it down and stomping on it. With a roar of anger, Hatter wrenched his right arm free from the other's grasp, and threw a wild punch at the other boy. The crunch of breaking jawbone seemed to almost echo. The injured boy cried out and fell back. Another right hook to the gut of the second boy took him out, and the third dropped the bag of food and fled.

Young Hatter gaped a moment as the two boys writhing at his feet. He staggered over to gather up his hat and his food. As he straightened, his eyes met Alice's. They were both confused and surprised by the sudden power in his right arm. Then he jerked his chin, as if to invite her to follow him, but she lost him as he ran off.

* * *

The next memory that captured her made her wonder about the nature of this potion Caterpillar had given Hatter.

The mists didn't quite recede completely this time, though she could tell it was some sort of warehouse room. Other people filled the area, laughing, talking, or singing wildly. It sounded like a drunken party. Most of them seemed young, dirty and tattered. A dizzy feeling filled Alice, as if she'd had just one too many.

She had to look to find Hatter, slipping through the room, dodging couples and staggering individuals. As one pair of girls toasted each other with familiar apothecary bottles, slugging back measures of pink liquid, Alice realized she was in the Wonderland equivalent of a rave.

She found Hatter half conscious on a torn sofa, sprawled against the ripped fabric and leaking stuffing, straw hat perched on his wild hair. He appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years old.

The smile he gave her was an early precursor to his seductive grin. It didn't work as well on an adolescent's face as it did on the man she knew he'd become.

To everyone else in the room, he was grinning at nothing and talking to himself. Not at all unusual for a Tea Party, apparently.

"Ah, Dark Lady!" he crooned to her. He beckoned her closer. In his other hand, she saw an empty bottle.

"What did you take?" she asked with concern.

"A three-quarter measure of Bliss. And here you are!" he answered with a laugh.

Alice frowned. "You did this… for me?" That made no sense to her fuzzy mind.

His eyes slipped shut a moment, before opening and focusing on her with the intensity of the completely smashed. "I've been looking for you," he told her seriously. "Where do you go, my beautiful friend?" His hand reached out to her, and she couldn't resist taking it.

"I'm always here, Hatter."

He grinned again. "Yeah, you must be, 'cause how would you know they all call me Hatter now if you weren't?" He grunted and shifted on the couch, yawning into his elbow. His gaze turned myopic as he blinked at her. The Tea was making him pass out.

"Take me with you, when you go?" he asked her softly.

He fell asleep before she could answer.

* * *

The next memory was just as fuzzy, and much warmer. Too warm, in fact, as a flush of arousal ripped through her. Shocked, it took a moment before Alice registered what she was seeing, and when she did, she quickly turned and covered her ears as she shut her eyes.

She really didn't want to know anything about Hatter losing his virginity.

* * *

More blurry memories followed, all of them tinted with the haze of Tea usage. Alice swallowed hard and tried not to weep for the damage a teenaged Hatter did to himself. Teas and women, fights and flights, all played out before her eyes like a film in fast-forward. She couldn't help but notice certain trends. Hatter occasionally looking over his shoulder, as if seeing a glimpse of her from time to time. His predilection for women that looked nothing like her – blonde and buxom bimbos. His mad chuckle when faced with danger or adversity. At least seemed he never killed anyone, nor did he sell himself like his mother had. He conned and he smuggled and he wasted his small profits on Tea rather than food most of the time.

The replay slowed at last. A Tea Party was raided. They were looking for Resistance members. A twenty year old Hatter got on the wrong side of a Suit in the ensuing riot. Alice cried out as the gunshot ripped through him, just above his hip. He collapsed against a wall, and the Suit left him to bleed out.

Alice knelt beside him as the screaming chaos swirled around him. "Oh god, Hatter!" she wailed.

He looked up at her, and his smirk was darkly unsurprised. "Hello Dark Lady." Frantic, Alice searched for something to staunch the blood. Of course she found nothing, and she ended up pressing her bare hands against the wounds as he hissed in pain. She apologized for hurting him through her tears, but he shook his head. "You come when I hurt, I get it now."

She gaped at him, but his smile was ironic. His hand came up and brushed her cheek. "You come and you go and you cry for me. Oysters call you angels, did you know that?" His eyes closed, then opened again. "My Dark Lady. If I die, can I go with you?"

Shocked, Alice snapped, "Don't you dare die on me, Hatter. Don't you dare!"

When he passed out, the mists overwhelmed her.

Alice wept into her blood-free hands. Now she knew why he wore a Kevlar vest.

* * *

The sun shone pale through the grimy windows. The one room apartment bore an eerie resemblance to the house Hatter had grown up in.

On the bed, sprawled in familiar mockery, lay Hatter. He wore only a pair of loose pants. She could see the still healing gunshot wound, above the low slung waistband. He was sweating and shivering at the same time, despite the temperate air. Concerned for his health, Alice immediately went to the sink and dampened a towel. The familiarity of this memory frightened her, but she still went to his side and gently washed away the sweat on his brow.

Dark eyes fluttered open, taking her in without surprise. They closed again, and he sighed heavily. "And now the hallucinations start," he muttered. Resignation colored the emotion she got from him.

Still, she couldn't keep the fond smile from her face, or resist teasing him. "You couldn't hallucinate something better than this?" she asked.

He looked at her with some surprise, perhaps that she spoke, or at the affection in her face and tone. "What could be better than the attentions of a lovely woman?" he asked, and she blushed at his flirtation.

"You can't be that sick if you feel well enough to flirt, Hatter," she pointed out.

He groaned and shifted on the bed. "Not sick," he told her. "Drying out."

She paused in her ministrations. "Drying out?" she repeated.

"No more Tea for me," he sang weakly. "Dry as a well. Sort of. Dry as dry toast. Dry as.." Before he could finish the thought, he whined deep in the back of his throat and curled onto his side. Alice feared to touch him.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

He nodded, breathing shallowly with his whole body tense. Then finally on a sigh, he relaxed. He looked at her as if he'd expected her to flee, and was pleased and relieved when she didn't.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

"I'm Alice," she told him, and he smiled weakly.

"Yeah, right. You're not even blonde." She could see his exhaustion taking him over.

"I'm not The Alice. I'm _your_ Alice," she said, gently brushing her fingers through his hair. He sighed again, as if deeply comforted, and drifted to sleep.

* * *

Nighttime in Wonderland City. Alice trusted that one of the shadowed figures was Hatter, but the other she couldn't recognize until he spoke.

"You owe us, Hatter," growled Dodo. "We could have left you to die at that raid. You're lucky I recognized Griffin's whore's little boy in the wretched tea-head you'd become."

Hatter's tense body telegraphed his anger and discomfort. "What the hell do you want, Dodo?"

"The Tea House, Hatter," drawled Dodo.

"No way. I'm dry now, I want to stay that way."

"You don't actually have to _drink_ any, you idiot. A fast talker like you should have no problem scoring a position as a bargainer."

"And then what?"

"Observe and report."

"What? The hell–?"

"Shipments, assets, numbers of Suits. Any gossip, anything you hear about the Queen's plans," Dodo snarled, as if he'd lost patience.

"And if I won't?"

Dodo's silence was threat enough, but the man could never resist running his mouth. "Of course, we can't allow the chance of any liability running about. You could take your chances on your own, but frankly, it's either the Queen and the Teas, or us. Take your pick."

Alice could feel Hatter's fury and frustration. He didn't ask to be saved by the Resistance, and now they had him pinned between a rock and a hard place.

"Fine, damn it. I'll find a way in."

* * *

Hatter finally looked like the man she'd met, though she knew this memory was still several years before that fateful day. He became a fast talking charmer, conning people out of their money with a sly suggestion and a grin, smoothly skimming a bit off the top for himself before reporting the trades to Dupre, who ran the Tea House.

Alice watched the day Suits arrived to arrest Dupre. She could feel Hatter's smug amusement, and she wondered if she'd missed something in the blur of memories, some way Hatter might have arranged this. They were led by a tall man with thick dark hair and olive skin, looking like nothing so much as a Jersey City Mafioso. Alice gasped when she realized she was looking at Mad March, pre-bunny head.

When the Ten of Clubs arrived, Alice slipped closer to Hatter. It seemed like Hatter spared her a glance, so like the warning looks she knew from the man, that she easily fell into hiding behind him.

Ten sneered down at the huddling owner. "Her Majesty was … less than pleased with your last payment, Dupre. You were two days late."

"I couldn't help it! I didn't have the assets! I brought it over as soon as I had it all!"

"Her Majesty expects shipments of Tea to be paid for ON TIME." Ten jerked his chin, and the Suits carried the wailing and protesting man away. Ten's eyes swept the room, evaluating. "The Queen requires new management for this Tea House," he announced.

Alice knew the moment resolve steeled Hatter's spine.

"I'll do it," he said, his voice deliberately nonchalant. Alice could feel the tension and excitement within him. It was a huge and dangerous opportunity.

Ten eyed him suspiciously. "Who are you?"

Hatter grinned. "They call me Hatter." He swept the hat from his head, performing a neat little roll and toss with it, before giving a mocking bow. "Best Bargainer in the place."

The Ten of Clubs made a little harrumph noise. "Well, as a bargainer, you ought to be able to keep this place in the black. Queen's cut is due the fifth of each month." He looked around at the others. "Hatter's in charge now."

With that, the Ten and the rest of the Suits swept out of the Tea House.

Dead silence filled the room. Alice felt as tense and worried as everyone else seemed to feel. Then Hatter gave everyone a toothy grin, as much baring of teeth as a smile. "Well, you heard the man. New Management doesn't mean new rules. Do you want your Tea or not?" The babble of voices filled the air as he strode confidently down the hall to the office. Alice rushed after him.

The mess in the office was testament to the rough treatment a failed Tea House owner could receive at the hands of the Suits. Hatter didn't even try to clean up. He shut the door firmly, and only righted a chair before flopping into it.

For a long time, he sat silently, rubbing his temples. Alice waited. She felt the draining fade of adrenaline in him, and the resignation and caution.

When he looked up, he didn't seem to see her clearly. He looked around the room, and sighed. "That probably wasn't my smartest move," he said lowly. Then he chuckled. "I can imagine you chastising me for it, for some reason."

"You did paint a very large target on your back just then," Alice said.

But to her amazement, he didn't hear her. "I sometimes wonder, was it the Tea? Or was it just my imagination?" he went on softly. Alice crossed to him, and waved her hand right in front of his face, but he didn't even blink. He couldn't see her or hear her anymore.

"Right, talking to yourself, Hatter old boy. Brilliant – they'll put 'Mad' before 'Hatter' in no time at all." Hatter stood and with a determined expression, started sorting through the papers on Dupre's desk.

Alice stood back and sadly waited for the mists.

* * *

Though she should have expected it, the next clear memory still took her by surprise.

"Hatter! Hatter!"

"Ratty. What the blue blazes do you want? Stay off the grass!"

"I found her, Hatter. She's here, and she's looking for her boyfriend!"

"Her who? The love of your life?" Cruel amusement coiled through his voice, as if Hatter couldn't possibly imagine a woman who'd be interested in Ratty.

"It's ALICE, Hatter. THE Alice. Of Legend!" The smelly man nearly danced in place with excitement.

Alice could feel Hatter's cynicism. In the years since taking over the Tea House, Hatter had grown bitter and cynical, almost cruel in his disregard for others. He faced the world with utter indifference now, placating the Suits, feeding the Resistance, skimming a pocket-lining profit from both without a single qualm. He'd become grim. He still grinned and flirted, conned and cajoled. He talked women into his bed without hardly trying, convinced Suits to spill privileged information by feigning a loyal and sympathetic ear, and collected favors from the Resistance by supplying vital needs, all without a single sense of conviction or care in his heart.

Emotionally, Hatter was a dead man. Alice knew that wasn't entirely true, but she couldn't help wonder what it was about _her_ that brought him back to life.

Now she would see it all, from Hatter's point of view, feeling what Hatter felt. The anticipation stole the breath from her lungs.

When Ratty brought memory-Alice into the room, the watching Alice cringed. First of all, she had no idea she'd looked so very awful. Second, Hatter's tone as he spoke so clearly reeked of cynicism. And yet…. she could feel the stirrings of interest and fascination in him. Those only grew, tempered with amusement as memory-Alice twitched beneath his gaze.

She tagged along, a shadow to her own adventure, watching it all play out in Hatter's memories. She felt as compassion stirred in Hatter for the first time in ages as he offered memory-Alice his hand to ease her fears, and how it grew, fed by her own compassion for the refugees in the Great Library. She felt the suspicion of Owl's shotgun, the hot fury that Dodo _actually shot him_ after all these years. His impressed amazement as she took out Dodo made Alice blush, as did the amused rush of lust that coiled through him as he secretly admired her legs while explaining the significance of the Stone of Wonderland.

Grim determination and quick thinking got them into the smuggling boat and away from Mad March. There was something wistful in him as he suggested going through the Glass with her, an echo of the boy who wanted to follow his Dark Lady away from all this. The real Alice's heart ached for him, wondering if his thoughts of his Dark Lady were real, or the product of this treatment to regain his memories.

The flight from the Jabberwock frustrated and terrified him – he might not be falling for Alice yet, but he clearly didn't want to see her get eaten. Charlie baffled him. But the shocked realization that Wonderland could be something more, something better, nearly knocked Alice over. She hadn't seen the expression on his face at the time from her seat behind him, but this time she could. Hatter looked out on the wasted remains of the Kingdom of the Knights, and a fierce longing for that past glory, that better world, was a rush that made all of her tingle with energy.

That night, she heard at last his muttered words by the fire. "That Jack's a lucky guy," he murmured with wry jealousy.

"Oh, Hatter," Alice sighed, wishing she could reassure him. She could feel how he wanted to earn her regard, and that even he himself found it confusing and strange how quickly he'd gone from simple lust and using her, to wanting to protect her. She followed him to where he'd settled down by the barn. She couldn't hear his thoughts, but she knew that he watched her sit by the fire for a long time, until she finally moved to Charlie's ramshackle bed. That wistful feeling returned as Hatter's dark eyes looked across the camp at memory-Alice's still form.

* * *

She owed him a massive apology, she realized as she watched the fear and anger cross his face when he realized memory-Alice had left in the night. Still, his swift resolve and determination to find the runaway impressed Alice.

She was just as amazed as Hatter when Charlie's babbled directions in the Casino led precisely to a middle-aged receptionist, who blandly and disinterestedly pointed them down a hall. The first door Hatter opened led to the familiar foyer of Alice's childhood home, much to her shock. When he blithely opened the sliding door and almost fell forward, it was all she could do to not try to grab him back.

The desperation in his order to _jump_ made her shiver. She had no idea how terrified he'd been in that moment that he'd lose her.

Alice bobbed along like a balloon on a string as the trio raced to escape the Casino. She discovered even if she didn't try to keep up, her perceptions were dragged along without her control, as if she had no body at all at this point, just a consciousness able to observe the action.

Her own terror of heights made her clench her eyes shut. Somehow, she still felt the rush of the wind, and the vibration of the Flamingo, though she might have sworn she was standing still.

"I suppose it's his lofty airs and graces?" Hatter asked memory-Alice with a renewed sense of bitterness at the world at large.

"He doesn't have airs and graces," she heard herself contradict.

The terrifying fall ended with a confusing mess of darkness and mists and disorientation.

* * *

Alice cursed her own willful blindness. Watching memory-Alice fight with Hatter on that beach, knowing how her unfairness wounded him made Alice cringe with regret. His frustration and desperation for acknowledgement pierced her.

She had no choice but to follow him back along the lakeshore to the boat. He muttered to himself the whole way, practically stomping through the woods. When she got close enough to hear him clearly, his words stopped her heart.

"Worthless… bastard… idiot…. couldn't possibly…. what does she see in that damned Suit? Payment up front, don't get attached, you moron." He scourged himself with his own words, trying to drive his feelings of longing for Alice out of himself. "She's not _your_ Alice, she never will be."

She wanted desperately to speak to him, reassure him, tell him to just hang on, and eventually Alice would realize how important he was to her. Her hands reached out for him, but like with Flower, they passed through his shoulder. Alice moaned with dismay when she remembered she was now just a passive phantom.

Hatter filled himself with grim implacability in the journey back to the City. Alice was surprised to see that his target was Dormie, who clearly wasn't the useless narcoleptic Alice had thought. Message delivered, Hatter headed back to the lake.

He drove himself hard, and anger again cut him when he found Charlie asleep and memory-Alice nowhere to be found. But up on the hill, all his fierce mental fortifications crumbled.

Alice had never seen herself in someone else's eyes quite the way Hatter saw her in that moment. Wearing his coat again made his breath catch, like she was wearing a part of him, willingly. Alice could feel the yearning rise up in him, mingled still with desire, but also respect and admiration, and appreciation. And part of his determination to fight the Queen at last was fueled by his need to be something better in her eyes. He'd fallen for her by then, and there was nothing he wouldn't do for her.

Watching him and memory-Alice together, Alice longed to stop the treatment, just so she could tell him everything she thought about him – how she loved him, how she admired his strength, how she didn't care about the Tea, how Flower and Dodo were completely wrong about him.

She might have thrown something at Jack herself if she'd been able to, damn his wretched timing. The ferocity with which Hatter defended her warmed Alice.

Unfortunately, she was almost immediately frozen with horror at the crushing feeling of worthlessness that she felt from Hatter, as Jack's derisive words ground him down like a weed beneath a boot heel.

She hadn't realized what measure of courage it had taken for Hatter to chuckle and smile and send her away with Jack. He truly felt heartbroken, believing she'd chosen Jack over him. She watched as Hatter scrambled back up the hill to watch memory-Alice ride away, Charlie at his shoulder.

The awkward kindness he showed Charlie then was like a flashback to the eager boy who'd been so happy with Griffin's praise. But it merely masked the dead numbness losing her had caused.

Alice recognized the flicker of a plan on Hatter's face when they returned to the camp, and he paused to look at the horses. A few glib lies later, Hatter was riding off on Charlie's spare mount.

It didn't surprise her this time that he'd followed. She felt his exasperation with Charlie, his resolution to rescue her, and his disbelief and sense of crushing failure when the Suits took him down and Charlie ran away. Alice had been dragged away first, so she never saw what happened next.

"So, Hatter…. following in your predecessor's footsteps, yeah?" Mad March robotically taunted.

Hatter sneered. "Dupre was a bumbling idiot. He couldn't find his arse with both hands." His grin was cocky and challenging. "The Tea House didn't start supplying the Resistance until I was in charge."

Mad March cocked his rabbit head. "I mean gettin' beheaded, moron. But since you just copped to it – Where's the Great Library?"

"Sod off."

"Where's the Great Library?"

Hatter spat at March's feet.

"Where's the Great Library?"

Hatter just gave the assassin a defiant look.

Finally, in a swift movement, Mad March whipped out his gun and slammed the butt of it against Hatter's head. The sudden dive into unconsciousness and mists made Alice cry out in surprise.

* * *

She didn't want to watch, but she felt she had to witness it. The 'doctors' didn't even ask Hatter any questions. They just went at him – first with bludgeons, then with electric prods. Alice wept as she watched, feeling his grim determination to survive the torture.

And yet, it could have been so much worse. Dee and Dum simply abused him, enjoying his flinches, his pain, but there was no attempt to dissect him psychologically as they had with Alice. The Truth Room itself pulsed and swirled with a motion-sickness-inducing mix of black and green, but nothing indicated it was keyed directly into Hatter's mind.

Perhaps they thought he'd break under physical duress? Alice almost scoffed at their stupidity if that's what they thought. Her Hatter was braver, stronger, and smarter than that.

Then Mad March appeared. Hatter babbled nonsense, perhaps trying to make the Queen's flunky think he'd lost his mind, but the glare he gave March when asked again about the Library sort of blew that bluff.

Alice cheered when Hatter managed to evade the killing stab and free himself. He smashed March's head, and followed that up with several stomps to the mechanical innards. The dead man's neck bled sluggishly as Hatter claimed the knife to free his left wrist.

Hatter paused, staring down at March. Alice realized with a jolt that for the first time ever, Hatter had actually killed someone. There'd been so much violence in his life, and yet he'd never actually taken a life before. The man himself seemed to have the same realization, because he staggered sideways suddenly, and wretched several dry heaves before collecting himself. Alice desperately wanted to comfort him, but couldn't. She followed as he found his jacket and hat, then combed the Casino looking for her.

Watching their reunion from the outside, Alice gasped at the expression of bliss on Hatter's face when memory-Alice hugged him. It reminded her forcibly of how he'd looked high on Bliss Tea at the Tea Party when they'd talked. This is what she did to him? Made him happier than he'd ever been? Alice cradled the responsibility for Hatter's heart close to her, owning it, embracing it. His fierce elation when memory-Alice told him she trusted him completely gave the watching Alice a giddy rush.

Alice shuddered with the tension and adrenaline of the confrontation with the Suits and with her father. When Hatter shot the man who shot her father, Alice realized he felt nothing of the horror and remorse that flooded him after killing March. All he felt was protection towards Alice, and anger towards the one who'd threatened her. Charlie was wrong; Hatter was no mere Harbinger, he was Alice's true Paladin.

She could feel his regret as he pulled memory-Alice from her dead father's side. Watching, Alice could hardly keep up with the memories that followed: The collapse of the Casino, the confrontation with the Queen, Jack taking charge swiftly and efficiently. She remembered for herself the excuses Hatter made to leave her with the other Oysters, claiming he needed to check on his shop. Hatter felt bewildered and off-balance from the reversals of the day – his near death at the hands of March and the Tweedle twins, Alice's near death, and the overthrow of the Queen. But mostly, Alice could tell, Hatter was unsettled by the force and strength of his own emotions about _her._

He couldn't look at Alice without wanting her. Desire, admiration, and appreciation all got muddled in his head with a wistful wishful feeling, a simple need to be with her. As she watched his life play out in his memories, Alice longed to hold him close and keep him forever. In her heart, she willingly labeled her feelings for him as love, because how could she not love a brave and decent man who she now knew better than she knew herself? She wondered if she might undergo the same treatment, so Hatter could learn everything about her in turn.

Hatter sat for a long time in his ruined home. Almost nothing had escaped the predations of Suits and looters. All of the teas, his reel to reel and headphones, most of his wardrobe, even some of his furniture had been stolen. The poor grass was trampled flat. She couldn't hear his thoughts, only feel his emotions which were settling, calming. Finally, he seemed to reach a level of resolution, and he jumped to his feet.

He hurried to the Looking Glass hall, following the line of Scarabs flying Oysters across from the Casino to journey home. And then, so much became clear for Alice, as she watched him watch Jack and memory-Alice embrace, feeling the gut wrenching loss and unworthiness. Hatter believed Alice had reconciled with Jack!

His conversation with her was stilted, uncomfortable. Alice could feel his panic, his desperation, his passionate longing for her, all covered up with a need to appear normal, to seem perfectly at ease.

When memory-Alice vanished through the Glass at last, Hatter stood staring after her for a long minute. Hovering at his shoulder, Alice could feel his heartbreak. He spared one harsh jealous glare at Jack, then spun on a heel and returned to his shop.

* * *

Days as hollow and meaningless as the ones before he'd met Alice followed. Alice learned that Hatter kept a secret safe, full of what passed for Wonderland currency – bits of un-molded gold, small gems and valuables, and a case of colorful vials of Tea. Judging from the vibrant shades, these were undiluted Teas, unlabeled, but no doubt Hatter knew them well.

One night, in the darkest hour, she sat beside him crying as waves of misery poured off him. She gasped when he suddenly sat up on the couch and lurched to his feet. He staggered to the safe, withdrawing the case, and plucking a vial of hot pink from it. Hatter stared at the Tea in his hand for a long minute, and Alice prayed he'd make the right choice.

At long last, despite the misery that still gripped him, Hatter replaced the vial and case, and returned to the couch.

* * *

Morning light shone through the windows, much earlier than Alice would have expected. Hatter unearthed a carpet bag from a storage room, and opening a safe, filled it with almost all his remaining valuables.

Silent and resolute, he stole through the streets of Wonderland, his phantom observer close behind.

He paused outside a ramshackle clock shop closed and locked, checking around to make sure no one saw him, before slipping down an alley to a dark side door.

He knocked in a complicated pattern. Alice unconsciously held her breath as he waited for a response.

A small panel slid open. The watery blue eye took in Hatter for a long second, then shut and the sound of latches scraping came faintly through the thick wooden door.

"Hatter," wheezed the ancient man who opened the portal, his skeletal body bowed and gray. He waved a hand, drawing the young tea house owner forward.

Inside, the shop was cluttered and dark. Like Hatter, this man clearly lived in his own back room. A narrow bed stood shoved against one wall, near a desk, while shelves of silent clocks and knick-knacks surrounded them. A faded curtain led into the front, but neither the man nor Hatter made any move towards it.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" asked the old man.

"I need papers," Hatter stated bluntly.

"Papers?"

"For the other side."

The man raised a grayed brow. "Forgeries."

"Whatever you want to call it."

The man snickered breathily.

"I can pay you, Turtle. All of your costs, covered. And I need a contact for currency conversion."

Shrewd old eyes swept over Hatter. "The heat is on?"

"What does it matter?"

"Trouble for you could become trouble for me. What, you piss off the new King already?"

Hatter's face took on the same implacable expression it had for Dodo. "It's me own business, Turtle. It won't come looking for you."

"And how are you going to get through the Glass, then?"

"I have my ways."

The two eyed each other warily. Finally Turtle nodded. "Very well. I can do the papers, and I can convert the currency. What have you got?"

A long bargaining session followed, where Hatter's valuables were assessed one by one. Eventually, Turtle agreed to provide an ID, passport, and green card, plus two hundred dollars in exchange for what Hatter had on him.

The New Yorker in Alice winced. He could have done much better had he brought some of those jewels to pawn in the city.

The delivery date was set for two days from now.

* * *

Hatter spent the intervening time casing the Looking Glass Hall. When he had his papers in hand, he approached a technician, who for a hefty bribe of Hatter's remaining Wonderland wealth, set the Glass to the right destination and time before leaving for the day. That technician also distracted the Suit guard long enough for Hatter to slip into the Hall undetected.

Hatter stood looking at himself in the Glass for a minute. Alice could feel his hope, his desperation, and his need for her. Longing overcame his hesitation, and he stepped into the Glass with a deep breath.

For one moment, Alice felt the exact same wild falling suffocating sensation she remembered from her trips through the Looking Glass, before black unconsciousness overtook her and Hatter both.

* * *

_to be continued_


	3. Chapter 3

_Don't you forget about me  
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby  
Going to take you apart  
I'll put us back together at heart, baby…_

_Don't you forget about me._

_---Simple Minds_

* * *

_Alice._

_Alice?_

"Alice?"

She shifted silently. She lay on a hard cool surface, and her body felt every bit of it, stiff and sore. Physical exhaustion tugged at her, and only the discomfort of where she laid let her shake off the sleep.

"I knew it… I knew it…" muttered a voice above her, ragged in its despair.

"Hatter?" she asked, still disoriented. She rubbed at her eyes.

"Alice!" Hope colored Hatter's tone. "Where are you?"

"Ugh. I'm on the floor." The young woman groaned and staggered to her feet, hands pressing against the small of her back. "Ow. I think I fell off the bed." From the hospital bed, Hatter stared up at her, wild eyed and nervous. Alice smiled at him. "How do you feel?" she asked.

He blinked. "Like a Scarab ran over me. And, um, restrained. So if you wouldn't mind?"

"Oh god, right!" She made quick work of the strap buckles, releasing Hatter from the bed. He sat up with a groan that was an echo of her own pained noise. She stepped back, in case he wanted to stand, but he paused seated on the edge, just looking at her.

Alice swallowed hard. She couldn't read his expression, and it took her a moment to realize she wasn't sensing his emotions anymore either. The potion had worn off, the treatment was over. She hardly knew what to say. "So, um… Do you remember everything now?"

He nodded. He sat so still and quiet, it made Alice nervous. "Are you sure you're ok, Hatter? You seem…."

"Just say it, Alice."

Thrown by his interruption, she said, "Huh?" inelegantly.

"I remember going after you, and then I kind of remember coming back, you found me and brought me back. So thanks for that. But you should just say it and go." Some strong emotion swirled in his eyes, and tugged his mouth into a grim line.

Alice frowned, putting the disparate clues together. "Do you remember _me_ in your memories?"

He looked away, shifting uncomfortably. "I couldn't really see you when I was reliving them. You were just… a shape. Like a ghost. But with you there, some things were less… anyway, I know you were there, I know you saw it all."

"I'm so sorry, Hatter! I had no idea that would happen; Caterpillar didn't even know what would happen. I would never have invaded your privacy like that had I –"

"Alice!" Hatter stood, whipping off his hat to run a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture before jamming it back down again. "Quit torturing me."

She covered her mouth with her hand. "What do you want me to say?" she mumbled, utterly confused.

His face screwed up into an expression of frustration and misery. "Just tell me you don't want me and go already."

Speech utterly deserted her. How could he think that? Instead of speaking, Alice launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She only caught a glimpse of his shocked face before she fused her lips to his, kissing him for all she was worth.

For one terrifying moment, he froze under her attack. Then Hatter's hands grasped her waist and dragged her closer, his mouth softening under hers, kissing her back with passion.

It was electric, far more than the sweet soft kisses she'd shared with him when he had no memory. 'David' had no memory of their connection, no shared danger or even time together to infuse their kisses with passion. _Hatter_ had years of longing for something more to drive him, the days of running and fear and fighting together, the desire and need that drove him to leap through the Looking Glass for her, damn the consequences. Alice melted into him, trying to let him know how much she did want him.

They pulled apart, and her eyes fluttered open as she felt his warm breath on her face. He still looked surprised, but much happier.

"I do want you, Hatter. I love you," she told him earnestly.

"But.."

"No buts!" She tightened her arms. "They were all wrong about you! You're wonderful. You're smart and brave and decent and … and gorgeous and you're my hero!" She couldn't stop the tears that pricked at her eyes. She needed to convince him. "I love you, and I'd do anything for you, Hatter. My Hatter."

Joy lit up his face with an awed expression. His arms wrapped around her tightly and he buried his face into her shoulder as he hugged her close. "My Alice," he muttered against her neck, the brush of his lips making her shiver. "I love you so much." They held on to one another, reveling in being together at last, knowing exactly how much each meant to the other.

The click and scrape of the locks on the door separated them, though Alice trailed one hand down Hatter's arm to grasp his hand, curling her fingers around his. The crooked smile he gave her was wry and pleased, his dimple pulling at his cheek and making her heart flutter in her chest.

The door opened to reveal Caterpillar blinking blankly from behind his glasses. "I see the treatment was a success," he commented dryly.

"Fit as a foghorn," Hatter announced cheekily.

"Fiddle," Alice corrected, a laugh behind her voice.

"Whatever," Hatter shrugged. He winked at her.

Caterpillar watched the exchange with an interested expression, the way someone might watch the activity of insects. He stepped back wordlessly, inviting them to escape the barren hospital room.

In the hall, both Alice and Hatter froze to see King Jack with his retainers waiting for them.

"Alice," Jack greeted her warmly with a small bow. He nodded politely to Hatter. To the former conman, he said, "You might have come to me, you know."

Hatter gave him a sardonic look of disbelief. "Oh, really?"

"Yes. I, and all Wonderland, owe you a great debt for the assistance you gave Alice."

Hatter's expression clearly displayed his skepticism, but before he could speak, Alice said, "That's nice, Jack. So there's no problem with Hatter getting the inoculation he needs?"

"None whatsoever." Jack gestured to one of his flunkies, who produced a small black case that when opened, contained a single syringe.

Hatter wordlessly extended his left arm. He held his jacket tight in that fist, his right hand still holding onto Alice's hand. Caterpillar took the syringe and injected Hatter, who didn't even flinch as the needle slid into him.

"How long?" the former tea dealer asked.

"The effects are instant," Jack told him.

"Good," Alice said. She looked up at Hatter. "Let's go home."

"Actually, if you could spare some time, I do have a proposition for Hatter that would –"

"Jack – shut up." Everyone looked at Alice in shock, even Hatter. "It's been a hell of a week, and if you don't mind, I want to take my boyfriend home and lock ourselves in his apartment for the next twenty-four hours or so. If you've got a business proposition for Hatter, you call on Monday like a normal person." With that, Alice pulled on Hatter's hand, leading him away from Jack, Caterpillar, and the other mad denizens of Wonderland.

Hatter grinned broadly over his shoulder at Jack before eagerly following Alice.

* * *

"That was fantastic," Hatter whispered as they rode the transport back to the Looking Glass Hall, his voice hushed in deference to the Suits piloting the thing.

"What?"

"You, telling off Jack."

Alice snickered. "You're impossible, Hatter. Of course that would amuse you."

He shrugged a little, before pulling her closer, letting his lips brush her ear as he spoke. "I especially liked your idea of how to spend the rest of the weekend." He was pleased to see the little shudder that went through her. "It's an interesting change from the sweet woman that took care of me for a week. I didn't know you had it in you, Alice my love."

Her grip tightened on his hand and she leaned into him, pressing her body against him. "I wasn't going to take advantage of an amnesiac, for goodness's sake," she replied, the sharpness of her words lessened by the breathy quality of her voice. If the Suits hadn't been present, Hatter would have snogged her senseless right there.

"So now that I have my memory back, you _are_ going to take advantage of me?" he asked with a smirk.

Her eyes caught his, dark and stormy and full of promise. "You better believe it. And you're going to enjoy it."

It was Hatter who shivered at that.

* * *

Both of them stumbled upon arrival in the warehouse, but like the trip to Wonderland, their grip on one another helped balance them both. Alice's eyes immediately sought Hatter's, and she gave a relieved sigh when his grin and nod told her that this time, he retained his memory.

They snuck out of the construction site, re-locking the padlock behind them. Alice quickly hailed a cab, and they shared a number of heated looks as they politely but impatiently waited for the short ride to finish.

The moment his building's elevator doors closed behind them, Hatter yanked Alice close to kiss her hard and passionately. Alice moaned happily against his lips, an eager participant in the activity.

Hurrying down the hall on his floor, Hatter dropped the key to his apartment twice trying to get the door open, his attempts hampered by Alice's quick hands already busily unbuttoning his shirt. He managed at last to unlock the door, shoving Alice through and slamming it behind them. Alice gleefully tossed her bag and jacket aside, and reached for him, pushing his jacket and shirt off his shoulders in one move. They left a trail of clothing behind them as they blindly made their way to the bedroom, never fully relinquishing their hold on one another. There would be time enough for slow and tender later; for now, they fell together onto the bed, both eager, both excited, both needing to make that ultimate connection.

Hatter gasped with a sensation of coming home at last as he slid into Alice's body, her arms and legs drawing him close. Alice flung back her head with a pleasured moan as Hatter filled her, delighted to be fully joined with him.

They moved together and they cried out together and they both laughed with joy.

* * *

Hatter stared at the face of the woman cradled in his arms. He could almost count her eyelashes as they lay against her flushed cheek, and he reminded himself to do that at some point, to add that number to all the other marvelous things he knew about Alice. He looked forward to spending the rest of his life learning about her.

"I wish…" she whispered softly.

"What, my love?" he asked.

"I wish I could let you see my whole life, just like I saw yours." Her eyes opened, and he smiled as their gazes locked. "It's not fair, that I know all about you," Alice insisted.

"I have no problem taking the time to get to know everything about you, without injections and crazy dreams," Hatter told her.

She frowned a little. "Do you really remember-remember me? Like under the stairs, or the day…" She hesitated, unwilling to stir up bad memories for him.

"No, it's not like that," he told her. He shifted a little, adjusting their positions so they were pressed even closer together. "I can't really explain it. I don't remember anyone ever trying to stop Flower. But as I was reliving it, it was like… like all the times I wanted someone to be there, you were." He shook his head, then placed a kiss on her nose. "It doesn't matter. I'm just relieved that you still want me, after seeing all that."

Alice propped herself up on an elbow, so she could look at him properly. Her expression was dead serious as she told him, "I would never _not_ want you, Hatter."

He glanced away. "There's a lot of my life I'm not proud of, Alice…"

"It doesn't matter," she echoed him. "You didn't ask for it, you didn't deserve the life you had to lead, and you did your best. You _chose_ to get dry, right? You worked in the tea shop on the Resistance's orders, but you did the best you could."

"I didn't exactly do it all for them…"

"It doesn't matter. You survived, and if you hadn't, you wouldn't have been the Man Who Knows, and then Ratty wouldn't have brought me to you, and then where would we be?"

Hatter couldn't help chuckling at her tortured logic. "Well, you have a point there." He combed his fingers through her hair, enjoying the silky feel against his hand. Very softly, he told her, "All my life, I think I was waiting for you. I love you."

Alice smiled sweetly. "I love you too."

* * *

Jack sent a Suit to call on Hatter with an offer to work for the White Rabbit, acquiring items and arranging shipments through the Looking Glass of things Wonderland needed to get itself functioning properly again. Hatter thought about it for a week, and made a counter offer that if Jack helped him get a normal business started, then Hatter would allow that business to front for the White Rabbit operations.

It was Alice's suggestion to start a coffeehouse, or rather, to buy an existing one that she knew was about to close, and adjust it to suit. Hatter wrinkled his nose at the idea of selling coffee, but eventually conceded that coffee was far more popular than tea. He ended up offering both, plus pastries from a local supplier, and full cream teas on Saturdays.

Several days after their return from Wonderland, Alice admitted to her mother that she'd 'met someone new'. A short time after that, she invited Hatter over for dinner to meet her mother. By then, Hatter had started his business, and Carol Hamilton allowed herself to be charmed by the young 'Englishman', though she teased Alice about her newfound taste for British men.

Alice conscientiously told Hatter stories from her past. Some of the tales made them both laugh, others would leave her in tears as Hatter comforted her. She always admired his strength, how he never let his horrible past drag him down.

Hatter eventually discovered that Alice had forty-seven lashes on her right eyelid, and forty-nine on her left. She also had a scar on one thigh from when she fell out of a tree at age twelve and needed seven stitches. She preferred butter and Nutella to jam on her toast, she liked her eggs scrambled, and he could make her lose her train of thought by brushing her hair aside and planting kisses across the back of her neck.

In time, more and more of Alice's things made their way from her mother's place to Hatter's apartment. The official migration occurred one rainy weekend.

Alice sat cross-legged on one end the couch, a laptop balanced on her knees as she internet-shopped for boots. Hatter sprawled across the rest of the couch, half reading a book, half watching her.

"I'm just going to have these delivered here, alright? I'm here most of the time anyway," Alice announced, as her fingers quickly entered information on the screen.

"Why don't you be here all the time?" Hatter suggested casually.

Their eyes met, and a slow smile crept across Alice's face. "Really?" she asked.

"Really."

She set aside the laptop and crawled up the length of his body so she could kiss him. "Alright then."

They still argued and pouted and laughed and chased each other around the apartment and fought about laundry and grocery shopping. There were tears and confessions and reassurances and make-up sex and celebrations and disappointments. There was joy and commitment and contentment.

And there were nights when Hatter ran his fingers through Alice's hair, and reverently whispered "My dark lady" against her skin between kisses, and Alice held him close and swore she'd never forget her responsibility for his heart.

* * *

END

_AN: Sorry about the delay on this chapter. After Ch 2, my muse decamped to locales unknown, and the understudy muse had to come in for this one. I'm not crazy about it, but at least it's a decent ending._


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